Ivana Tovilla-Bátiz

"Dejection" Drawing #1 ("DETAIL")

Dejection: according to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, is a “feeling of being unhappy, disappointed, or without hope.”

“It was shortly after I turned seventeen years old, in 2018, when my best friend passed away from mental illness. While I was grieving, I took a self-portrait photograph (initially using a “Selena Gomez Lose You To Love Me” filter that was widely available on Instagram’s platform). Editing and layering the image on top of itself in different values of greys, over and over again, playing with the contrast on Photoshop until I reached a composition and depth I thought conveyed what I was feeling, "Dejection" was born. Although Selena Gomez’s song conveys a heartbreak from her breakup with Justin Bieber, at the same time, I was going through a platonic heartbreak. I had, and have, outlived him. The lights, shadows and stark monochromatic contrasts were done on purpose to convey what PTSD made (and still makes) me feel on a day-to-day basis, including nightmares, mood swings, anxiety, triggers—the different layers of such a complicated mental health condition. Chiaroscuro is the light-dark relationship within tonal values and contrast. I am a firm believer that life is to be lived and experienced in Chiaroscuro.”